“The New Testament’s most dangerous book for Jews” -- A Reflection on Reading the Book of Hebrews
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| Christ the Great High Priest, 16th-century fresco (St. Nicholas Toplički Monastery, North Macedonia) |
The second
reading from the epistles in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary invites us
to consider the message of the Book of Hebrews. The first of seven readings
from Hebrews appears this coming Sunday, should preachers decide to make use of
it. I’ve written my lectionary reflection on the reading from Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12,
which appeared here on Monday. We know little about the book’s origins,
audience, author, or date. Though offered as a letter, it is most likely an
early Christian sermon that was adapted as a circular. Scholars have noted that
its Greek is of a high order and represents the work of someone steeped in
rhetoric (thus, the suggestion that it is a sermon). It is also suggested that
the book has strong Platonic elements. There are clues to its possible origins,
but nothing is conclusive.
All of
that said, modern readers, more attuned to the challenges of living in a
post-Shoah world, may find the apparent supersessionism present in the book
deeply problematic. It is suggested that a new covenant has emerged in Christ
that makes the old covenant obsolete. In Hebrews 8, we read that Jesus is the mediator
of a better covenant. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there
would have been no need to look for a second one” (Heb. 8:6-7). Thus,
Christianity replaces Judaism as God’s covenant people. The church is now the
true Israel. Because of the way Hebrews is often read, it poses a great danger
to Jews. But should we read Hebrews in a way that poses a danger to Jews? Or is
there another way?
Having posted my first reflection on the reading for Sunday, I picked up my copy of the Christian Century, and opened to an article that carries the title of “The New Testament’s most dangerous book for Jews.” It is written by Jesper Svartvik, who is a biblical scholar who taught in Jerusalem for a decade and currently serves as a visiting professor in Jewish-Christian relations at Boston College. In addition to this essay, Svartvik writes the lectionary reflections for the first two sets of readings from Hebrews (October 3, 10). In this essay, Svartvik explores the question of how we read Hebrews. He notes that by the end of the book/sermon it is clear that the author has an eschatological, even apocalyptic vision in mind. The author is writing to encourage a community that assumes that the end is imminent. If that is true, then should we not read the earlier references to the now obsolete covenant in the same way. So, while covenant language is used regularly, and Temple imagery is plentiful, the question is whether the author is contrasting Judaism with Christianity, such that Christianity supersedes it. Or, might we read old and new covenant in much the same way we read old and new creation, with earthly/heavenly contrasts the key.
Here is
where I want to bring in a longer quote from Svartvik, and then encourage the
reader of this post to go further and read Svartvik’s entire essay. He writes:
So what about the use of the word covenant? Christians are so used to referring to the Jewish Bible as “the Old Testament” and Judaism as “the old covenant” that they might not be able to see what the anonymous author here actually has in view. At the time of the composition of Hebrews, “the old covenant” could not be a technical term for Second Temple Judaism. And it is crucial to note that in Hebrews, the “new covenant” above all belongs to the future. In other words, Hebrews is far more eschatological than most readers have realized. This is not far-fetched: if both the oldest letters (written by Paul) and the oldest Gospels (the synoptic tradition) are eschatological, then why shouldn’t the oldest preserved Christian sermon be as well?
Hebrews presupposes the dialectics between the present and the future: we now live in “the time that is” (9:9), and the author longs for “the time for a better order” (9:10). The heavenly service, in which Jesus Christ serves as high priest, is already in progress; this is invisible to human eyes, inaudible to human ears, and incomprehensible to human thoughts. But the time of the new era has not yet completely broken. In the words of Peter J. Tomson: “The ‘new covenant,’ if we may thus accentuate it, is valid only in heaven, not yet upon earth.”
Later in the essay, Svartvik writes:
Thus, he writes:Hebrews does not compare Christianity to Judaism. Instead, it compares the future and perfect to the earthly and fragmentary. In short, it compares heaven and earth—and the author of Hebrews states, not surprisingly, that the heavenly is perfect and the earthly is deficient. The new is better than the old because the kingdom of heaven is better than earthly life.
In Hebrews, the oldest Christian sermon we have, we hear what we already are familiar with from listening to other New Testament voices: a yearning for a world that is better than this world. We hear it, that is, if we can listen without presupposing the supersessionism of a later time. Reading Hebrews eschatologically provides us with a hermeneutical framework when interpreting it. Yearning: in a word, this is how we should read Hebrews on earth.
As
preachers, there are texts of Scripture that give us problems. We may want to avoid
them, and yet here they are, inviting us to consider the message they hold. We
may have to argue with the text. We might also need to reimagine the way we
read the text. Here we have a dangerous text that has been used to justify the oppression
and murder of Jews, who are deemed to hold to an obsolete religion. But, if we
read it differently, we might discover new insights while letting go of the
anti-Judaism that has plagued earlier readings. As I pondered Svartvik’s essay,
I wondered who is writing commentaries that take this direction? In the
meantime, I invite you to read the essay and ponder a new way of reading texts
that does not denigrate Judaism.
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